


Glass-Cold Heaven

by Squashers



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Depression, Drug Use, Gen, Heroin, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2186313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squashers/pseuds/Squashers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since he was a kid, Simon has known that life is meaningless, and there's no point in doing anything if you're just going to die in the end. In New York, he finds an escape from it all that he can inject into his veins, and everything from there is just a downward spiral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass-Cold Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [sawyl](http://sawyl.tumblr.com/). Sorry this took so long! It took me a while to get back into the swing of writing after 5 months, and this ended up being way longer than anticipated. Thanks to [mylesmisaddiction](http://mylesmisaddiction.tumblr.com/) and [fregglover](http://fregglover.tumblr.com/) for betaing and encouraging me along the way! Title is a reference to the Yeats poem "The Cold Heaven."  
> TW: depression, drug abuse, one small but graphic vomit mention

When he was a child, he used to have a recurring dream of being trapped in a giant glass jar, like the kind his schoolmates would put captured bugs in. The world would go on around him and he'd bang on the side of the jar with his fists, yell and scream and wave his arms, but no one would notice. He'd slump down at the bottom of the jar and stare up at the lid, which was absent of any holes for air. Usually, he'd leap up at this realization, throat already feeling tight and panicked, and reach out to bang at the wall again-- and his fist would crash right through it, air flooding in, sounds flooding in, life flooding in. He'd cut himself up in his eagerness to escape, but he'd wake up free.

When he got a little older, sometimes the glass wouldn't break. Sometimes he'd lie at the bottom of jar, watching life happen on the other side, muffled and wavy, and knock feebly with the palm of his hand until his breath was replaced by thick cloth in his throat and fog stole over his eyes and he woke up choking and sweating and exhausted in the dark.

Simon grew up watching American movies. His mum loved the romantic ones, the cute ones, and his dad thought the cowboy films and action movies were good for him. As he grew up, Simon found he liked the independent films, the ones with complex and dark plots, interesting characters that endure pain and sometimes don't end up perfectly happy in the end. Still, there was the promise of the American dream, of the strange sort of optimism that all American movies seemed to hold, always floating in the back of his mind.

When he was seven, a little boy in his neighbourhood fell very sick. The boys in the houses around him made badly-drawn get well cards and waved up to his bedroom window from the pavement. A few weeks later the boy died, and all the parents shook their heads and muttered together and tutted sadly and patted each other's shoulders and declared that the boy was in a better place now, with the angels now, out of his misery now, free of pain now.

Those whispers Simon heard from just inside the hallway, from just down the stairs, from just outside the front door, simply served to reinforce what he felt like he already knew. Everyone was just waiting, waiting to die and go back into the darkness from whence they came, to be free again from whatever pain they might suffer from. Everyone was just waiting, even if some tried to ignore it or carried on with jobs and hobbies and life like fingers drumming restlessly in a waiting room seat, they were simply distracting themselves from the death they were so patiently waiting for.

Simon didn't have friends. Or he had people who considered him a friend, but he didn't think he could say the same about them. It wasn't that he was bad with people; in fact, the people he talked to always loved him and found him fascinating. He just didn't like people. He didn't like the expectation that he had to open himself for others' satisfaction, or the petty small talk everyone seemed to enjoy. He was more interested in reading books, or taking walks into the fields outside of town, just generally escaping from the noise of everything.

There was nothing wrong in his life, in his family, that made him hurt this way. It wasn't like Cameron in his class, who came to school with black eyes and bloody noses and once, a cast, because his father and brothers liked to throw punches and other things too, and his mum didn't have the strength to protect him from one grown and three nearly-grown men. There was nothing like that. He was just trapped in his own head, the strange whispering noises it made and the thoughts that circled round and round that seemed so different from the way everyone else looked out at the world. Sometimes his brain would lash out at him like Cameron's brothers, kicking at him and he'd lie on the bed and take it, not knowing what else to do. If it were a person, he'd be screaming. But he was just there, locked up in himself while his thoughts beat against him before retreating.

When he was twelve, the noise in his head took over. He no longer dreamed of being stuck in a jar because every waking hour felt like he _was_ stuck behind glass, while something vile whispered in his ear and every sound was simultaneously muffled and magnified, and there was no way for him to escape. Waking up every morning and leaving the house was overwhelming, so he pretended not to feel anything. On the one or two nights a month his dad would drink too much and yell and throw things, he'd run away into the fields and hide and cry and wonder why no one else seemed to walk around like they knew they were just waiting for death, or why no one else seem to flinch every time they were forced out into the world.

At the end of his 8th year, a few boys he knew stole bottles of cider and beer from their dads and congregated behind the school after classes were done. He was walking past them on his way home when they noticed him.

"Oi, Simon," one whisper-yelled across the way, beckoning him over. "Come join us. We're 'unna get plastered."

Another boy, Thomas, held a bottle of cider out to him. "Stole it from me da. You can have this one. I've got me own."

Simon took the bottle, looking around at the others, who grinned and rose their own in solidarity. They all drank. Soon the other boys were giggling merrily and shoving at each other and roughhousing cheerfully. Simon sat on the ground with his back against the wall, a pleasant numbing buzz chasing away the black feeling that made every sound feel like a gunshot and every touch feel like a punch and every day feel like hell. He didn't understand how his father shouted every time he drank this stuff. It made Simon's head feel dulled and something like happy.

Two years later, he was almost fifteen and realizing he liked boys. Sure, he'd always had a niggling feeling in the back of his head that there was something different about him, but he didn't know it was _that_. The group of boys he got drunk with before had sort of awkwardly accepted him into their group, shrugging their shoulders as he became the quiet one in the back, watching intensely and listening to them talk to each other and him, and occasionally commenting when he felt comfortable, which was rarely. Sometimes Thomas or the leader, Georgie, would sit and talk to him, but mostly they were content to let him follow and watch. Then he and Thomas were the only two left after one day's after school adventure, waiting for the bus in the spitting rain. They smoked a cigarette between them, and the taste of Thomas's lips on the damp paper made Simon shiver. He stubbed the cigarette out on the bench between them and hummed thoughtfully.

"What's that, then?" Thomas turned, responding to the soft sound.

Simon's gaze flickered to Thomas' lips and he leaned closer. Thomas didn't move away, just looked back at him. When Simon kissed him, it was awkward, both of them inexperienced and uncertain, and the angle was all wrong, but Thomas kissed him back. His lips were soft, and cold from the rainy air but Simon could feel them warming up as they continued. Thomas made a small noise in his throat, and they pulled apart and stared at each other.

"Sorry, I--" Thomas looked down at his feet.

"No, it's--" Simon looked at his own shoes, tapped the fingers of his right hand against the knuckles of his left. Shaking his head lightly, he dislodged the thoughts of inadequacy that were already growing louder and threatening to trap him. "I wanted to. Are you-- okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, m'fine."

The bus ride back home was silent, but Thomas' hand brushed Simon's where it lay on the seat. Simon kissed him again in an empty classroom at school a few days later, and again two weeks later at a mate's house in the kitchen under the quiet hum of the refrigerator while the rest of their friends were noisily watching telly in the other room. They smoked weed in Thomas' bedroom late at night when everyone else had gone and the boy's mum was asleep, packing the nuggets into Thomas' glass pipe and blowing the pungent smoke out the open window into the damp night. The darkness reminded Simon only of the strange empty feeling that sat simmering at the pit of his stomach, and way the blackness in his head seemed to turn the world up several notches. The weed dulled it all, made it swim and waver softly. He dumped the burnt-up bits of marijuana out the window and placed the pipe down on Thomas' desk, settling down on the bed.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Thomas' cheeks were flushed pink from the cold coming in the window, his dark hair falling into his eyes, and Simon leaned over to kiss him, steadying himself with a hand on Thomas' thigh. Thomas giggled a little in his throat, the pot loosening him up, and eagerly kissed back. Simon's hand traveled further up without much thought, but Thomas didn't pull away. The handjobs that followed were awkward, fumbling, punctuated by the occasional moan and then a shush and reminder that Thomas' mum was asleep only walls away. It was over as quickly as expected with two horny teenagers, and Thomas seemed only a little embarrassed afterward. Simon didn't regret it, even though he had to sneak home and pretend he'd only been out studying with friends, not kissing them in the chill of a quiet bedroom.

Simon was never ashamed of his sexuality, even if his father did whack him round the ears when he told him. His mum only hugged him and told him she loved him no matter what, but he needed to be careful. He only half-listened to his mum, and his dad didn't matter. He was seventeen, and he'd be getting out of there soon enough. He and Thomas fooled around after school, but during classes Thomas would laugh about "fags" with the others, and Simon couldn't help but shy away and stare down at the table while the laughter rang in his ears and pointed mocking fingers of sound at him and made him want to flinch. He and Thomas spent nights alone together learning each other's bodies, but days full of mocking laughter from Thomas' mouth gave Simon's thoughts knives and claws and baseball bats that he couldn't escape when he lay in bed at night.

Casual, nameless sex became a balm for the echoes of laughter that liked to remind Simon that he was hated. Sometimes he brought boys home in the dead of night and his dad would glare at him when he came down the next morning after they'd snuck away, and Simon would grin smugly over his breakfast. Sometimes he stayed out late and fucked in someone else's bedroom or living room or wherever. Sometimes he went to clubs, even though the noise was so much, too much and the people were too much, too close and everything made the darkness in his head louder and closer and his entire being felt like it was throbbing madly, crushing his insides. But there were drugs that made him feel so incredibly happy, that made him see colours, that were wonderful and distracted him from the dark.

He passed his A-levels with ease and spent a year at university, and that's when the blackness truly rose up and swallowed him whole. Two months into fall term, Thomas killed himself. Simon got the news from his father's muttered statement over the phone. "Ashamed for being a fag," his dad said. "Didn't want to hurt his da no more. Hung 'imself in the attic. Bad end." Simon hung up the phone with numb fingers and a ringing in his ears. Death tapped him on the shoulder and slapped him in the face when he turned round, and everything was too much, too much again. He was smart, he was good at school, it should be easy. He hadn't talked to Thomas in a couple years, it should be easy. Instead he stayed wrapped up in bed in his dorm in the dark rather than go to class. He wrote a few essays that his professors praised him greatly for, but had no energy and no will to do much more. Why bother when he was just waiting to die? Why bother when everything in life was completely meaningless once your body crapped out and you disappeared into the ground? He watched American movies on the crappy little television at the foot of his bed instead of going to class.

Still, cruel little voices whispered in his ear when he tried to concentrate on escaping into the television world. Why was he still alive? Thomas was always happier than him, and he was dead. He was hanging from an attic beam, a pale and limp sack of meat. He had finished with waiting. What was the point of Simon living, then? The world was fucked up, that someone like Thomas was dead and someone like Simon was still alive. Thomas hadn't looked at the world like everything was a waste of time, Thomas wasn't certain that he had no future, Thomas didn't look at elderly people on the street and laugh at the thought of even making it to that age. Simon was the one who should have given up with the interminable delay of death. All this waiting patiently was bullshit. He needed some way to escape all this.

Simon had only to ask another boy in his hall where to go, and was easily directed down to the room of someone else in the same building. He knocked there.

"What?" The kid answered, his shoulder-length hair falling in wheat-coloured strings about his face.

"Kid upstairs said you--" He was tugged in by his elbow, the door shut behind him.

"What do you want. Make it quick, it's me girlfriend's birthday and I promised we'd go out."

He didn't want MDMA; he had no use for that type of energy. He smoked weed regularly, he didn't want the vaguely happy feeling that was barely there anymore even when he did smoke. He wanted a distraction. "Mushrooms, if you've got any."

"Sure, mate." A bag was pressed into his hand. He dug into his pocket for money and swapped the notes for the baggie. The boy's hands clamped onto his shoulders and shoved him out into the hall again. "Now get on, I've got t' get dressed."

"Ta..." The door was already shut.

Back up in his room, he dimmed the lights and filled a glass with water, putting on some nice music in his CD player, and sat down on his bed. He expected the terrible taste of the mushrooms, and quickly chased it with a chocolate digestive and some water to get the flavour off his tongue. He lay down and stared at the ceiling, waiting.

The first sign was the sound of the music going echo-y, like he was listening to it at the back of a church. Then colours seemed to shift and blend, twisting until he was watching the shadows on the ceiling of the trees outside as a story seemed to unfold in the blotches of light and dark, and the light and dark shifted into swirling, undulating colours. He forgot about Thomas, forgot about all the ways his body ached, forgot about everything but the patterns on the ceiling and the music swirling around him and the way he felt like he was drifting, falling, disappearing into the molecules in the air until there was nothing left of him.

That was it, then. If he was going to have to wait to die, he might as well get fucked up and distract himself while he was doing it. No point in sitting around in this depressing, laughable existence if he couldn't do something to get his head the hell away from it all. The rest of the year passed in a haze of pot and shroom trips and ketamine and oxycodone and a failed salvia trip that nearly had him bust his brains on the wall. Classes became second in line to getting out of his head; his books gathered dust on the shelves and his desk only gathered dirty plates and a bong or two instead of papers. He lied to his parents when he came home for winter break, telling them he was doing well and classes were interesting, he was just tired. At the end of the year, he tried to take his finals, but his professors shook their heads and told him it was hopeless, he was worthless if he hadn't come to class. He failed his first year of university, and decided he'd be better off taking a gap year and going to America. Maybe life would be brighter there, maybe he could find that American dream thing everyone always talked about, the optimism that he saw in the movies he watched.

New York was huge and noisy and bright and Simon felt lost in its vastness and somehow it was like he was free. No one knew him here. No one cared who he was or what he did or what he liked here. Everyone was doing their own thing, waiting to die, and not a glance was spared for him. He didn't have to pretend that he didn't think everything was meaningless and stupid and a waste of time.

He managed to line up a cheap apartment to rent for the time of a school year. Not much on him, he tossed his belongings into the grungy apartment that was practically a closet, locked the door, and headed out into the night.

It wasn't hard to find a club, and even less hard to find someone with a variety of drugs for sale. He smoked the weed he purchased in the cool air behind the club, and a small blonde man with twitchy eyes and constant nervous movement struck up a conversation with him. The man's name was Davis, he was twenty-eight, and he thought the world was going to shit. It was, Simon agreed. Everyone's just waiting to fucking die, so deep in denial they don't even know what they're doing.

The longer they conversed, the more Davis grinned widely and nodded at his agreement. "Know what, Simon?"

"Hm?"

"I like you. Your accent's pretty cool and you agree with me on shit the other guys don't get. Which reminds me. Want to meet them?"

Simon pinched out the stub of the joint and stowed it away in his pocket, nodding.

Davis' friends welcomed him quickly, handshakes all round. Davis held his hand out to indicate the group, then gestured to Simon with a flick of his wrist.

"This is Simon. He just came over here from Ireland."

"You always seem to find the orphans, don'chya, Davis?" A tall punk with a nose ring and a mohawk joked. He clapped a hand on Simon's shoulder. The contact was so much, too much, but he didn't flinch. "I'm Deitz. Welcome to New York. Where're you staying?"

Simon told him the street, but not the number.

Davis shook his head. "That's some shit livin' you got. I'm a few blocks up from you. You ever need anything, just come around. We're always down here, too."

"T'anks," Simon nodded agreeably. Someone else in the group held out a palm with pills gathered in the center. Deitz raised his eyebrows and nodded to the hand.

"You up for some? You're welcome to it. There's enough to go around, and we like taking care of orphans."

It was an easy decision.

He spent a week doing the tourist thing, seeing every place the travel book said he should, going to the places in the movies he'd watched as a kid. It was novel to feel so small, so free, so marvelously different in such a huge place with so many people. For a moment, the newness of it all chased the black away.

Then his depression came back to crush him into the ground. He tried smoking the rest of the weed he had left, but it didn't seem to help. It wasn't strong enough to combat his fucked up head, the darkness that surrounded him. His entire body ached. He felt like every sound, every movement, every breath was going to overwhelm him. His nerves were on fire and just thinking made him want to cry. He wrapped himself in his woolen blanket on the dirty mattress and stared at the wall, drifting somewhere between waking and sleeping. He couldn't sleep, because he'd only find himself struggling to suck in air and watching the world behind glass. He couldn't stay awake, because he would only find himself struggling to suck in air as he stared out the glass of the dirty window at the grey building across the street. He felt like there was a sucking black hole in his chest, like there were chunks of him missing. Something inside him shouted that he was worthless, that he was stupid, that he should just fucking die already, forget waiting. Everything felt bleak. Everything felt like it was trying to destroy him. He was overcome.

"You look like shit, man." Davis leaned against the bar as Simon tried to drown his brain in alcohol. "We thought you'd gotten mugged or hit by a car or something. Where've you been for two weeks?"

Simon shrugged and stared down at the counter, tapping the edge with a finger. It was too loud in here. He felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. "In me flat. I feel like shit. Brain's a mess. Wish I didn't have t' think."

"Man, I've got the solution to that back at my place. You don't have to if you don't want to, of course. But I think it'll help."

Anything, anything to shut up the vileness in his head, anything to shut up the angry thoughts telling him he was worthless and stupid and alone, anything to remove the circulating image he'd created of Thomas hanging from an attic beam, anything to stop his head from hurting with a pain that was anything but physical, anything to dull this feeling that everything was overpowering him every second, anything to stop him from wanting to cry whenever he wasn't sleeping. He got off the bar stool and followed Davis out into the city.

Davis' flat was dingy and bare of almost any furniture but the necessities, but it was still bigger than the closet Simon was renting. Deitz was curled up on a stained beanbag on the floor, watching television with a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Look who I found."

"Hiya, Simon." The beer bottle was lifted in his direction in lieu of a wave.

Simon gave a nod. "Deitz."

Deitz turned back to his cartoon. Davis led him into the kitchen, where a burly man with ginger dreadlocks tied at the base of his neck stood at a pot at the stove, humming as he pushed a clumpy-looking soup around with a spoon. "This here's Wendel. Hey, Wendel, this is Simon."

Wendel lifted his eyes from the soup and cocked his chin in Simon's direction. "How's things?"

Simon tapped his fingers against his knuckles. "Er, bit shite, I s'pose."

"So, the usual." Wendel shrugged one pale, freckled shoulder, the muscles bunching and flexing under his blue muscle shirt, and went back to tending his meal. He didn't seem to be expecting a response.

"Hm." Simon stared at the bruised hand gripped the handle of the spoon. He blinked. It was too hot in the kitchen.

Davis took him by the arm and led him back out to where Deitz was sitting, urging him towards the threadbare couch that was shoved up against one wall. Simon tugged off his leather jacket and tossed it over the arm of the couch as Davis disappeared through another doorway. He drummed his fingers against his knees

"Deitz, you want in on this?" Davis asked as he appeared again with a shoebox and glass of tap water, lifting the box a little higher when Deitz looked over at him. "Simon wants to get out of his head, and I offered a little assistance."

"If you're cooking up, I'll get in." Deitz kicked himself upright and slunk over to sit on Simon's right side on the couch, his long legs sticking out past the tiny wooden coffee table in front of it.

Davis sat down on his left and opened the box, removing a cotton ball, a small packet of powder, rubber tubing, a lighter, spoon, syringe and needle. "Simon first, he's our special guest."

"I respect that."

"Ta, mate."

Simon felt no apprehension staring down at the paraphernalia on the table, only a sense of anticipation at the idea of maybe being able to finally shut his brain up, finally stop feeling overwhelmed just by living. Davis tapped the pale powder into the spoon and stuck the needle into the glass of water, sucking the liquid up and then placing it in the spoon. Deitz flicked a lighter under the spoon as Davis held it up, stirring with the back of the plunger to dissolve the powder. Then, as Davis placed a cotton ball on the spoon to filter the heroin as he pulled back the plunger and sucked it into the syringe, Deitz turned to Simon with the band of tubing.

"Give me your arm."

"Which one?

"Doesn't matter."

Simon gave him the right arm. Deitz wrapped the tubing around his bicep, just above the elbow, tight, and rubbed at the skin of his forearm.

"Happy birthday, or you know, whatever." Davis flicked the syringe until the air bubbles collected at the top and he could press them out

Simon had a feeling the tubing around his arm wasn't as tight as it felt, but everything was too intense. The cartoon bouncing around on the television Deitz had neglected to shut off, Wendel in the kitchen clanging his dishes about, Davis humming to himself, the rough scratch of the cushions on the sofa, Davis' hands on his arm, the acrid smell of exhaust that seemed to engulf everything in the city, the bright sun that slanted in the window and onto the peeling white wall, his own brain screaming at him until it was a buzz of angry hopeless white noise, the sounds outside of car horns and sirens and laughter and screaming and feet and--

Simon only felt a small pinch as he watched the needle slide under his skin, and Davis pulled back the plunger until a burst of red rushed in. Then the plunger slid down and the heroin was rushing into his veins and Simon was falling back into an empty, blissful nothingness like he had never experienced.

Everything, all of it, all the shit in the world, all the shit in his head, disappeared. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered. Warmth rushed over his body like a tidal wave, diving into his mouth and sliding thickly down his throat and filling his insides. Everything that had been so intense only moments before had slid away, like it had all turned to liquid and someone had poured every sensation away from him and onto the floor. He only distantly registered Davis and Deitz having a conversation beside him. It didn't matter. All the noise in his head had been dulled to a nearly silent, incomprehensible murmur and he felt like he was floating, his entire being had become the sensation of an orgasm and drifted away into some void of nothingness. This was the feeling he had been chasing so long, this was everything he wanted. He melted into the couch and felt all the air rush out of his throat until he was empty, and the next breath only filled him with a different kind of emptiness. Quiet engulfed him. Everything around him was pointless, everything had dulled and been pushed so far away it couldn't ever touch him again. He didn't care anymore. He didn't feel like he _had_ to care anymore. This intense, blissful nothingness, this was all that mattered.

His awareness slid back into him smoothly, but he was content to sit on the couch with his head back against the cushion, apathetic about the world around him. He took in Deitz back on the beanbag, though his eyes were glazed and unfocused on the television. Davis was still sitting beside him, cleaning up and sweeping cigarette butts into an empty water glass. He noticed Simon watching him.

"Was it good?"

Simon smiled slowly. "Good doesn't come close. Where d'you get that stuff?"

"Wendel and me got connections."

He took the cigarette Davis offered him. Everything was still muffled, quieter than usual. God, he wanted this always. "Are they available for new customers?"

"Dunno about that, my friend. But you can always come over here with a little cash if you want some of what we got. There's always enough for a few extra friends."

"I may have t' take you up on that offer, Davis."

That night, back at his flat, he dreamed he was trapped in the giant glass jar. He watched the distorted life outside, leaving fingerprint smears on the glass, but everyone seemed to be wandering aimlessly about, without direction. He didn't bother to try and get anyone's attention; he was certain they wouldn't be able to help him anyway. He expected the lack of air holes and the tightly screwed lid when he looked up. That was okay. It was quiet inside the jar, and he felt like the world couldn't get to him. When it became hard to breathe, he just stretched out, his back against the glass, facing away from the world, and waited. It was useless to struggle if it was inevitable, and anyway, there'd be a little kick at the end from oxygen deprivation. That was good enough for him before he faded away like everyone was meant to.

He woke up groggy and slightly nauseous from the heroin comedown, and decided to put off eating until later in the day. Not that he had much in the way of food at his flat, anyway. Instead he sat on his bed and strummed out a Morrissey song on his guitar to drown out the sharp sounds of the city until he felt like he could at least manage to go outside for the short walk to Davis'.

His knock on Davis' door was answered by Deitz, who ushered him in and promptly disappeared into what Simon now assumed was the bedroom. Davis came out a moment later.

"Hey, Simon."

"Afternoon, Davis. Er, I was wonderin' if I could take you up on that offer you made yesterday?"

"Sure, yeah. Listen, Simon, I'm about to leave for a few days, I got to see my kid down in Chicago. It's her seventh birthday and my ex-wife is actually letting me see her for longer than a day or two for once. How 'bout I give you enough for those few days, yeah? You got a kit back at your place?"

"Oh. Er, no, I don't."

Davis waved a hand in the air. "Psh, it's all right. We've got spare stuff lying around here." Simon dug in his pocket for the cash, handing it over to Davis, who went back into the bedroom and returned a few minutes later with a Ziploc bag of things and a baggie of powder. "I won't charge you for the kit. You're a friend, and you're new to the city. Consider it a welcome present of sorts."

"T'anks. Good luck with your kid, yeah?"

"I hope so. Crossing my fingers that bitch hasn't told my little Sammie girl lies to make her hate me." He wiggled his crossed middle and index fingers in front of Simon's face to prove it. Then he pointed at the kit in Simon's hand. "You get how to do that right, yeah?" At Simon's nod, he continued. "Good. Well, I'll be back in a few days. I know you haven't got a phone, so just find me here or at the club when I get back."

"Sure." He held up the kit. "T'anks for this, Davis."

Davis nodded and disappeared back into the bedroom, presumably to pack for his trip. Simon let himself out of the apartment and plodded back to his tiny room. He squinted against the bright sunlight, far too bright for September, and resisted the urge to flinch at every person or car he passed. Just the wind on his face felt like a punch, the sounds of feet and cars like tiny explosions, it was all too bright, too much, the world overwhelming him and trapping him until he could pound up the stairs of his building and slam the door and sink down onto his bed away from everything else. The kit dug into his side and he pulled it out.

He'd watched enough American movies to know how this worked, and he'd watched Davis the night before. He repeated Davis' actions: powder in the spoon, suck water from the cup and mix with powder with the lighter underneath. Cotton ball to filter, suck up the smack, flick the air out, tie the tubing over his right arm and slap at his elbow until the vein rose up. Insert, pull back for blood to make sure you got a vein, press down, fall back and let the greedy bliss steal you away.

It was nice, finally being able to feel everything disappear. The world that battered at him with all the sensations that were too much all of the time, with people that cheerfully ignored their looming deaths and instead loomed over him, with the news that blared all the shit that happened every single day as listeners and viewers pretended it wasn't happening and turned away; he felt the drugs in his veins whisk it all away and he fell into a nothingness and it felt so _good_.

He lay there on his bed for a while, arms outstretched beside him. He was floating, safe in the comfort of a cushioning void. Nothing could reach him here. Except a rolling feeling in his gut, but he ignored it. It was only a little nausea. He relaxed back into the bed, eyes rolling up and closing, and managed to drift back into the emptiness for a while. His stomach circled, that warm, uneasy feeling in his gut that shoved against the inside of his body and couldn't be ignored. He heaved himself off the bed as quickly as he could, which wasn't very fast, and hobbled into the loo, swaying slightly and using the wall for balance. His knees hit the tile floor but the jolt only felt like a strange springy pleasure, even as he bent over the toilet to retch.

Vomit splattered onto the floor of the bathroom and burned in his nose, the back of his throat, but he didn't really feel it, not really. He didn't care. It didn't fucking matter. The world with its tight white fist that squeezed him over and over until he felt like his brain would explode from the overwhelming _everything_ surrounding him was transformed into a gentle wave rocking him to sleep, drowning him in the womb of quiet where reality disappeared and everything fell still and dimmed and silent and he could finally relax. The vomit didn't change that. It was like puking was just his body ridding itself of the shit that was hurting and filling him with fear and depression to make room for this empty paradise that he had been needing for so long. He had no future, no ambitions, no beliefs, he had no life to live. He didn't need anything else except heroin.

Simon been in the States for four months, and Davis was his most valuable connection. The man got him what he needed, as he discovered that the more often he chased the dragon, the more he'd have to take each time to reach that perfect oblivion of his first few experiences. When cash was too low for smack, Simon would hit the streets and wander through clubs and alleys for whatever he could get to get him out of his head. He didn't care what; it mattered fuck all, so long as he could get fucked up for most of the day.

Seven months in, he got kicked out of his flat, hadn't paid rent in ages. All his cash went to getting a fix, or sometimes to food or other drugs. He stood on the sidewalk with all his things in a backpack, abandoned. He needed a fix he couldn't get. Instead, he went to a club and picked up the first guy he saw and fucked him in the back alley, too lost and angry to pay for heroin with money he didn't currently have. He was a goddamn loser, a worthless piece of shit with a hole inside him that ate everything and spat out pain. Couldn't even keep a roof over his head, and too much of a junkie for most shelters to take him. Davis took him in and Simon almost cried with relief.

He took to petty theft and fucking other guys hopped-up on ecstasy or crystal or speed for easy cash. It paid for his habit, for the hunger that consumed him, the need for the sanctuary of chemicals running through his veins. He searched out sad skinny boys with track marks on their arms and fucked them to darken the marks on his own arms. He didn't care if he was sleeping in a bed or on Davis' bathroom floor, so long as he could get the smack that dulled the world and set him free of the cage in his head.

It wasn't long until Davis picked up another stray, a skinny young man with shoulder-length brown hair and huge blue eyes named Jeremy.

"This place is practically becoming a shelter in it's own right," Deitz quipped as Jeremy made the rounds of introduction.

Jeremy shook Simon's hand, a grin stretching his full lips to show a chipped front tooth. Simon could feel him eyeing him up, and raised an eyebrow just a fraction as he clocked him. "Alright, Jeremy?"

The hand on his tightened, the smile widened. "Nice to meet you."

Dinner that night was spaghetti, with the good stuff for dessert. Deitz crashed out on his beanbag chair (Simon had learned in his first week living there proper that no one but Deitz used that beanbag chair), Wendel in the bedroom, Davis on the piece of shit recliner that didn't recline anymore. Simon and Jeremy were left with the couch, and even through the hazy void of bliss in his veins, Simon could feel Jeremy's heat close against his side.

Life at Davis' wasn't bad. Aside from the thievery and hustling they got up to as a rag-tag group, they enjoyed life. To the extent that Simon was able to enjoy life with the constant vile voice in the back of his head and the world turned up a few extra notches. He watched stupid cartoons with Deitz and talked poetry with Wendel and nihilism with Davis and he and Jeremy quietly watched each other from across the room.

Simon woke up one afternoon to the back of a cigarette carton taped to the refrigerator door with a message written on it in Davis' slanted, blocky writing: 'Wendel & me went to Chicago. Samantha broke elbow on bike. Deitz with girlfriend for weekend -D.' He ran a hand down his face and opened the fridge door, foot out to kick the bottom hinge back in where it tended to pop out. He drank orange juice from the carton, slammed the fridge door, and fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket. He was leaning over the sink, smoking out the kitchen window when Jeremy shuffled in, hair sleep-mussed, rubbing his eyes and tugging at the crotch of his jeans.

"Cigarette?"

"Yeah, thanks." Jeremy leaned closer for Simon to light it for him. Simon stubbed his own out on the sink and tossed it down the drain, moving away so they could switch places. Jeremy turned to watch him. "Where's everyone at?"

Simon was looking in the cupboards for something to eat. A package of Kraft mac n' cheese had fallen over in the back corner of one, and he pulled it out now, retrieving a pot from a cupboard below him and slightly hip-checking Jeremy out of the way fill it with water at the sink.

"Davis' kid broke her arm on a bike, so Wendell and him have gone t' Chicago. Deitz is with his girlfriend. Guess we're on our own for a while." He poured the noodles into the pot of water, fishing out the little foil cheese packet when it fell in and dropping it onto the table. There was a silence. The ugly hissing of the gas stove was almost loud enough to drown out the noise from the streets below.

Jeremy stubbed out his cigarette and shifted, leaning his hips back against the counter. "We haven't really got to talk much, have we?"

Simon stirred his noodles slowly, watching Jeremy out of the corner of his eye. "No, we haven't."

"How long have you been here?"

"At Davis'? 'Bout a month. In the States? 'Bout nine."

Simon drained the noodles in the sink and poured them into a bowl, stirring the cheese packet in. He pulled open the fridge and swore as it slipped off the hinge, kicking it back into place and grabbing the carton of milk. He sniffed it cautiously. It was sour, but it was just mac n' cheese, so he didn't care that much. He poured a bit into his bowl and put it back in the fridge.

"Been anywhere interesting?"

"Just stayed in the city. It's got what I need."

"You should visit upstate. It's pretty. And quieter. More relaxing and open. My parents got a place up there, if you wanted to go sometime."

Simon stopped stirring his food and turned with a low sigh. "Look, mate, you don't have t' try and seduce me. There's no need t' beat around th' bush. I'm just as gay as you are, I'm happy t' fuck. All you got t' do is ask."

Jeremy smirked and started to unbuckle his belt. "So, wanna fuck?"

"Okay."

Jeremy was a good fuck, a good distraction for when Simon wasn't shooting up or fucked up on whatever substance he could get his hands on when he was too cheap for heroin. The rest of the guys didn't care, so long as they did it quietly and out of their public viewing. Simon felt like he was maybe half-living for once, instead of quietly waiting for the overwhelming world to swallow him and for death to push him back into the darkness.

And then everything dried up. The petty thefts he pawned gave him next to nothing. It was almost July, and no one seemed in the mood to fuck in the already hot weather. He had no money. He craved a hit. His skin crawled, his bones felt like they were bruised and aching, and he lay awake most nights, sweating and uselessly fearful and unable to sleep. Davis might have been a friend, but he still didn't give heroin away for free, not with the amount Simon was buying from him now. It had been days. God, he needed a fix.

The chance came when Davis was called out to his very infrequent semi-job as a stand-in electrician when his other friends couldn't make it or just didn't feel like going in to work. Deitz was passed out on the couch after a three-day speed binge without sleep, Wendel was the who the hell knows where, as usual, and Jeremy had been persuaded back to his parents' for the weekend (he'd rolled his eyes and told Simon that they were going to try to get him to quit all his using and hustling. He wasn't about to do that, but they gave him free food and he wasn't going to waste that chance), so Simon was essentially alone.

He sat in the broken recliner and scratched at the itching in his arms. The sounds of life outside screamed against his ears and the contact of his clothes against his skin made him sweat and he couldn't catch a good breath. His heart pounded in an anxious way, though he had no idea what he was afraid of. The world felt like it was yelling at him, jumping him and beating him up with so much stimulation. His mind was fixated, looping on one thought only: _I need a fix_.

It bedroom door had no lock. It took only a moment of searching to find the shoebox shoved up in the corner at the top of the closet. He just needed a little fix, just a little. He could pay Davis back once he had money.

He took the box out and sat in the recliner, placing everything on the table and cooking up as quickly as he could. His hands shook with anticipation. He smacked at his right arm and nearly fumbled the needle in his eagerness to slide it into a vein just above his wrist. He put the needle back down on the table and groaned softly as the greedy bliss swallowed his pain and blackness washed over him and all the overwhelming world was peacefully muffled again.

He was only vaguely aware of some sort of commotion, distant and unimportant in the comforting void. Something stung against his face, but the sting was only eaten by the black and he grinned. Nothing could get him in here. The world had disappeared and he didn't have to think or move or exist.

Davis could have been raging for minutes, or hours, or days, he wouldn't have known the difference. Full awareness came back suddenly, though groggily, and he was aware of yelling, smashing. It was so loud, too loud, and he flinched back, peeking through half-closed lids at Davis screaming at him while Deitz hovered nearby, trying to get him to calm down.

"Wha? What's goin' on?"

"You piece of shit fucking _mick_!" His reflexes were too slow to protect him from the punch aimed at his head. "I give you a goddamn place to stay, I give you drugs every time you want some, I get you friends, I get you a _fuck buddy_ , and what do you do? You steal from me, you worthless junkie scum!"

"I didn't--"

"Didn't _what_? Didn't take a hit without paying me? Are you really fucking stupid enough for me to believe that? You know, Simon, I thought you were a good guy. Maybe just a little antisocial, but I thought you were all right. Turns out I was wrong about you the whole time."

Simon raised himself up on his arms, trying to blink himself to clarity. His face hurt, and he felt something wet sliding down next to his eye. "I was goin'-- I was goin' t' pay you back."

"Bullshit you were." His backpack was thrown at his chest. His fingers curled tightly around it like a safety blanket as the fist raised again. Instead, Davis spat in his face and stormed into the bedroom, the shoebox in a tight grip. "Get him the fuck out out of my sight. I want him out of this fucking house. He's gone."

Simon was still slowly wiping the spit off his face, staring at the shine on his fingers like he wasn't sure what just happened. He was a worthless piece of shit, a junkie, and the worst kind. Fuck. Deitz sighed quietly and pulled him out of the chair, putting an arm around his shoulders to hold him up as he swayed, trying to find his equilibrium.

"Come on, you gotta leave."

"'M sorry. I wasn't t'inkin'. I jus' needed a hit." Simon let Deitz lead him out of the apartment and down the stairs. The backs of his eyes stung with tears. He turned back to the punk once they got out into the street, backpack clutched to his chest. "Tell Davis 'm sorry, will you?"

Deitz patted him on the shoulder, lips pressed together in a sympathetic line. "Yeah, buddy, I will. I'm sorry too."

Simon watched him go back into the building. The world was loud and chaotic around him. People shoved against his motionless body as they passed. His head hurt. He felt small and empty and scared.

On the streets, he slept with one eye open. He didn't sleep. He hustled and stole and pawned and scrounged for a fix or for any other drug that might distract him from the cravings. Trash bags in alleys became his best friends: treasure boxes full of things to sell or eat, pillows for sleeping at night, protection from the sudden summer storm that soaked him through anyway and left him shivering and uncomfortable despite the warmth in the air.

He hadn't seen Davis or any of the other guys in three weeks. He avoided the club where they'd all met; it was only a reminder of how awful he'd become and how worthless he was now. He loitered outside bars and clubs to pick up anyone willing. He pawned things he stole from tricks, from cars, from purses on the street or the subway.

A clueless young man let Simon fuck him in an alley in the dead of night, groaning with pleasure as Simon wrapped his hands around his wrists as he thrust into him, too overcome with a nice hard fuck to be aware of Simon unbuckling his Rolex and sliding it off his wrist and into a pocket. It got him enough for a couple days' fix.

He bought a baggie and slipped into the first dive bar he saw. Inside was dark and grungy, with half-dead fluorescent signs flickering behind the counter and a floor that probably hadn't seen a mop in twenty years. He bought a beer just to keep up pretense, drank a few mouthfuls, then slipped back into the tiny bathroom, shutting the door and turning the dirt-sticky lock.

His breathing echoed loudly round the grimy tiled bathroom as he fumbled with the stolen diabetes insulin case that comprised his kit. The spoon clattered loudly into the sink, but he caught it before it could fall down into the drain. Movement caught his eye, and he found himself staring reluctantly into his own eyes in the dirty, grease-stained mirror.

His face was thinner, gaunt. He looked far older than twenty-two, his skin weathered and wrinkled and collapsed. His eyes were sunken, dark circles only making his melancholy expression more miserable. A sore was waging a battle on the corner of his lip, and the cut on his eyebrow from Davis' punch was still healing. He was skinnier than he'd ever been, hair stringy and too long. He couldn't remember the man who'd stared back at him in the mirror in Ireland. He never thought he'd fall this far.

Fuck it. There was no use lamenting when he had a hit sitting on the bathroom sink right in front of him. He cooked up.

Only a week later, and Simon's year abroad was up. His travel visa was almost expired. It was time for him to go home, but he barely had enough money to buy a fix, much less a plane ticket. He found a pay phone outside of a supermarket and dropped in change, dialing overseas. The call connected in a series of beeps and clicks and silences.

"Hello?"

"Da, it's me."

"Simon, haven't heard from ya in a long time."

"I know, da. Listen, my visa is almost up and I haven't enough money to buy a plane ticket home. Food and rent are more expensive here in New York than I t'ought they'd be."

"We can pay for the plane, it's all right. Your mum will be happy to see you."

"Is she around? Can I talk t' her?"

"Sorry, son. She's out with friends at this moment."

Simon smiled at the numbers on the phone box in front of him at the thought of his mum. The expression felt strange and foreign on his face. "S'all right. I'll be happy t' see her, too. T'anks, dad."

"It's all right, Simon. Call me back tomorrow and I'll tell you when your flight is."

"Alright."

The train to the airport was crowded and loud, and every second of being squished back against the window by the person sitting next to him made Simon cringe. The airport itself was not much better, loud and crowded and fast-paced. Slow, he wanted time to go slow so that he didn't get overwhelmed, didn't feel the shaking, paralyzing fear of people and life and the world that decayed into apathy towards everything in existence but heroin. He stared at his feet as he shuffled through to the terminal, barely looking up when he went through security. He itched.

Sleep was nowhere to be found on the interminable plane ride home. He'd find a comfortable position and begin to drift off, but then tiny anxious nightmare thoughts would bleed into whatever half-dream he'd find himself in, and he'd jerk awake. He'd drift off again only to find himself itching, or spasming, his body aching in its cravings. The passengers around him looked at him strangely, but he ignored them, trying to breathe through the looping thoughts of a fix, of going out of his head, of the void of bliss that beckoned him after touchdown. He managed an hour or so of sleep, but his head ached too much for him to get much more than that.

When he got into Dublin Airport, Simon ducked into a bathroom and stared at his reflection. He knew he looked far worse than he did when he left to go to the States. He washed his face as best he could with hand soap and paper towels, and ran his fingers through his too-long, greasy hair to try to brush out the knots and make it look more cared for. Then he sighed and straightened up and went to face the music.

His mother threw her arms around him and squeezed his ribs tightly. "I missed you so much! God, did you even eat in New York? You're so skinny!"

"Hi, mum. I missed you too." He inhaled the smell of home that clung to her jumper. "It's expensive living in the city. Food's expensive."

"At least you're still alive! Did you have a good time? Did you have adventures?"

"Yeah, I did. Met lots of people, did lots of things. I had fun. Lot's of new experiences."

His dad clapped him on the shoulder. "Good fer you t' have big new experiences in life before yer too old t' get around. Why don't you tell us all about it on the drive home?"

"'Course."

His mum asked him a multitude of questions as they drove, and he tried to make his answers as believable as possible. It wasn't too hard; she'd never left Ireland, and he could easily use the stereotypes she expected to enhance the lies.

He watched the scenery rush by out of the window, and suddenly felt like he was walking into a cage. There was nothing for him here except memories of long-gone friends and a dead lover, and dreams of being trapped and waiting to die in a glass jar where life moved on without him. He suddenly and acutely remembered just exactly _why_ he'd begun taking heroin in the first place. The things he wanted to love were too temporary to love. Everything was meaningless when life was only an interminable wait for death. The world was trying to eat him.

It was nearly one in the morning when they got home, and he dumped his stuff onto his bedroom floor before flopping down onto his bed with a sigh. He could hear his mum moving about downstairs, his father walking around in their bedroom next door as they both got ready for bed. He was jittery with cravings and jetlag and the feeling of being trapped that being home brought. He got up, grabbed his kit and his leather jacket and slipped his shoes on, heading downstairs to the kitchen where his mum was making nightcaps for herself and her husband.

"Hey, mum. I'm still a bit jetlagged from the flight over. It's only eight at night back in New York, so I'm still pretty awake. I'm goin' t' go for a walk til I'm tired."

"All right, then, love. I'm glad you're back."

"Missed you, mum." He kissed her on the cheek and she squeezed his arm in answer, then he was out the door and walking into the night.

The train to the heart of Dublin was nearly deserted so early in the morning, and he was glad for the quiet. Simon let his jitters free, drumming his fingers on his jiggling legs and swaying slightly from side to side, humming tunelessly in the back of his throat until his stop was announced and he jumped up.

He knew what to look for now, in the alleys and around bars and clubs, the subtle but distinct trading in dark corners, the looks on people's faces, the dark-faced figures that the ones who scratched at invisible itches flocked to. He scored quickly and followed another sallow-faced junkie through a grimy bar to a smokey backroom full of overstuffed couches that were littered with blissed-out bodies stoned or drunk or chasing the dragon or groping each other in the dark. He sunk down onto a free seat and cooked up in the protection of a large fake potted plant with cigarette-singed leaves sat on the little table beside his chair.

His first hit in nearly twenty-four hours, and he was gasping for it. He pumped his hand and watched the vein at the crook of his elbow rise up to the surface, slid the needle in and pulled back the plunger until a plume of crimson clouded up the syringe. Then he pressed the plunger down, placed the needle on the table next to the potted plant, and waited for the tidal wave of calm to wash through his veins. He felt his back relax, then everything other muscle and bone and nerve in his body. His heartbeat slowed from a jackhammer to the steady swing of a pendulum. The world dimmed, dulled, and he was disappeared into the orgasmic nothingness.

Life outside his own head was gone, and even his own head was silent. His aches had disappeared; the screaming abrasive thoughts that circled his brain like vultures had quieted. The ravenous bliss devoured his pain and spit out this comfortable emptiness that held him like a womb. He was not waiting to die. He was not even thinking of death. He was thinking of nothing, he was existing in nothing, and it was glorious. He could dimly see the world wavering in front of him through the orgasmic void, like he was watching inside of a glass jar as it went by. He thought of maybe putting a hand onto the glass or looking up for air holes, but this empty bliss was so perfect, if this was how he was going to spend waiting to die, he didn't want to get free.


End file.
